Editing Two-source hypothesis (section)

=== The minor agreements ===

The "minor agreements"—the word "minor" here is not intended to be belittling—are those points where Matthew and Luke agree against Mark (for example, the mocking question at the beating of Jesus, "Who is it that struck you?", found in both Matthew and Luke but not in Mark). The "minor agreements" thus call into question the proposition that Matthew and Luke knew Mark but not each other. Streeter devoted a chapter to the matter, arguing that the Matthew/Luke agreements were due to coincidence, or to the result of the two authors' reworking of Mark into more refined Greek, or to overlaps with Q or oral tradition, or to textual corruption.

A few later scholars explain the minor agreements as being due to Luke's using Matthew in addition to Q and Mark ([[Three-source hypothesis|3SH]]). But the modern argument for Q requires Matthew and Luke to be independent, so the 3SH raises the question of how to establish a role for Q if Luke is dependent on Matthew. Accordingly, some scholars (like [[Helmut Koester]]<!-- "Ancient Christian Gospels" -->) who wish to keep Q while acknowledging the force of the minor agreements attribute them to a proto-Mark, such as the Ur-Markus in the Marcan Hypothesis (MkH), adapted by Mark independently from its use by Matthew and Luke. Still other scholars feel that the minor agreements are due to a revision of the Mark found in the Bible, called deutero-Mark. In this case, both Matthew and Luke are dependent on proto-Mark, which did not survive the ages.

"Therefore, the minor agreements, if taken seriously, force a choice between accepting pure Marcan priority on one hand or the existence of Q on the other hand, but not both simultaneously as the 2SH requires."<ref name="mindspring"/>